Heather Creek Occurrence, Aleutians East Borough, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Heather Creek Occurrence	Occurrence
Aleutians East Borough	Borough
Alaska	State
USA	Country

Location: This prospect is at an elevation of about 600 feet, on Unga Island approximately 5,000 feet due south of the top of Apollo Mountain (Wilson and others, 1988, locality 50). Location is accurate to within 1,200 feet. Heather Creek is not named on the A-2 topographic map.
Geology: Peterson and others (1982) described this occurrence as a northeast-striking quartz vein system containing quartz veins less than a foot in width. The system is discontinuous along a 2,500 foot strike length and includes a knob of brecciated and silicified andesite 100 feet wide and 1,000 feet long characterized by numerous quartz-filled vugs and limonitic shears. Pyrite is the only sulfide that has been identified. The veins system cuts andesite flows and tuffs of the late Eocene to early Oligocene Popof volcanic rocks (Wilson and others, 1995). Grab samples from the knob contained as much as 0.23 ppm gold, 10 ppm silver, 390 ppm arsenic, and 0.28 ppm mercury. Channel samples of the veins contained as much as 0.02 ppm gold, 3.8 ppm silver, and 0.35 ppm mercury. Ellis and Apel (1990) described the occurrence as a 50- to 150-foot-wide, totally silicified and brecciated fault zone exhibiting multiple episodes of brecciation and mineralization. The zone extends 7,000 feet on strike from the California vein adit (PM082) west-southwest to Heather Creek. Argillic alteration forms halos 5 to 100 feet wide in tuff or flow wall rock. Samples of silicified breccia collected at approximately 200-foot intervals at selected sites along the trend contained as much as 0.414 ppm gold, more than 100 ppm arsenic, and more than 1.0 ppm mercury.
Workings: Resource Associates of Alaska and UNC Teton Exploration Drilling Company mapped and sampled the prospect in 1981and 1982. Grab samples from the knob contained as much as 0.23 ppm gold, 10 ppm silver, 390 ppm arsenic, and 0.28 ppm mercury. Vein channel samples contained as much as 0.02 ppm gold, 3.8 ppm silver, and 0.35 ppm mercury. Battle Mountain Exploration collected 56 rock samples in 1990; these contained as much as 0.414 ppm gold, more than 100 ppm arsenic, and more than 1 ppm mercury.
Age: Eocene or younger.
Alteration: The main mineralized zone has been silicified, whereas the wall rocks exhibit strong argillization.

Commodities (Major) - Ag, Au; (Minor) - As, Hg
Development Status: None
Deposit Model: Epithermal gold veins

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	PM085

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References